Gill's face is a broken, shattered maze of glass, jagged pieces of his soul lying everywhere. The skin on his forehead is tense, his eyes wide, like he's fighting against the urge to drop to his knees and weep. I wouldn't believe it if I'd never seen it before, seen it that night on the hotel balcony. Gill is a man, and he's strong, and he's a motherfucking badass, but he knows when it's okay to cry.
He doesn't now, but he does reach out and rub his thumb along the line of my jaw.
“If you'd have known,” I start, but my throat catches on the words and they get stuck behind my tongue. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, wetting my lips and trying again. “Would you have come back?”
“No,” he whispers, but the answer doesn't make me feel worse—it makes me feel better. I didn't want Gill to come back out of a sense of obligation, didn't even want him to come back for our daughter. The only reason I ever wanted Gilleon to come back was for me. I know it sounds selfish, but I think it's okay to think like that. Yes, I love my daughter, but one day, she's going to grow up and fall in love with somebody, start her own family. A partner's supposed to stand there at your side and watch it all unfold, love you more than anything and anyone, give your kid a platform to stand on and a safety net to fall into. “But I would've … made an effort to see her.” His voice is soft, stuffed with secrets. I think he's getting ready to tell me them.
I'm almost scared to hear. What will they change? What will they do to me, as a person? To us. To us. If you could really even say there is an us.
“If I were a better man, I'd walk away right now, find my head, calm down. Then I'd come back and we'd have a rational, adult conversation.” Gill licks his lips. “But I'm not a good man, Regi. I'm a terrible man who's done terrible things. I'm also a man that's still in love with you.”
When Gill leans down and captures my lips with his, I could pull away. I could easily push him back, tell him not to touch me ever again, and be done with this whole thing. But I can't. I can't do anything but kiss him back, let his strong, warm arms encircle me and pull me against him.
I curl the fingers of my left hand in his dark hair while my right slides up the firm muscles of his chest, bumping into the shoulder holster and the gun that's tucked away inside it. It should turn me off, remind me of the issues at hand, the reality of the situation, but it doesn't. Instead, it turns me on.
There's no waffling on the issue, no panicked thoughts about what might happen after this is over. I don't know about Gilleon, but right now, I'm not in my right mind—my body's in complete control.
When he reaches down and starts unbuckling his belt, I don't stop him, nipping at his bottom lip and tightening my grip on his hair. This isn't about foreplay or fun or even pleasure, this is all about connection.
“Regina,” Gill growls against my mouth, the sound curling my spine as I slide my hips forward and grind against him, against the hard bulge in his jeans. He groans in response, shoving up the lacy fabric of my dress until it's bunched up around my hips, leaving the black satin panties underneath exposed to the chilly autumn air. Even that's not enough to wake me up inside, remind me that this is a really bad idea, that Gill has too much focus, too much passion, to be dissuaded once he's got something in mind. If that something is getting me back then … I shouldn't even put myself in the position to deal with that.
But I can't stop.
Gill finishes undoing his pants and lifts me up, slamming my back into the side of the house. With the strength in those arms, that back, his chest, he has absolutely zero problem holding me there while I wrap my legs around him and we tangle tongues, his hard cock pressed tight against the front of my suddenly wet panties.
I run my fingers over his tattoos, over the swirls of black that stand out sharply in the gray gold air of morning. He tenses wherever I touch him, goose bumps rising on his skin, his nipples hard against the tightness of his T-shirt, physical proof of the effect I'm having on him, the same effect that he seems to be having on me.
I reach between us, push my panties aside and guide him to my opening. As soon as I do, Gill's thrusting forward, slamming me into the wall with a growl and a groan that I can't help but echo, biting down on his lower lip to keep my voice down. In the very back of my mind, I'm aware that my daughter, my dad—our dad, as creepy as that sounds—and Aveline are inside the house. Not to mention that pesky neighbor across the fence.
Fuck her, I think as Gill's body fills mine, both familiar and foreign all at once. I lock my ankles together behind his back, thanking the heavens above that I was blessed with long legs, and let my head fall back. Gilleon's lips find my throat, kissing and biting as he thrusts deep, his balls pressing tight against me as we grind together in a moment of senseless passion.